Consequences
by kas90
Summary: But I guaranteed one thing-this was the kind of movie that everyone would remember. It once was a love story, even borderline romantic comedy, but then, for everyone involved in the making, in our own very lives, it turned into the worst kind of horror.


**This prompt was inspired and written for YellowGlue for her birthday. Everyone make sure you wish her a very happy birthday on July 14****th****! **

**Thanks to Morethanmyself and Sammielynnsmom for reading this for me and forcing me to change the ending. This is self-edited, so any mistakes are my own. **

**Warning—this contains dark themes. But, really, if you have read anything of mine, that shouldn't surprise you**

…

**2011**

This moment reminded me of a movie…a movie where there was no happily-ever-after, the focused couple didn't get to kiss at the end, there was no promised future or even any hope of a future together at all. No, this was the kind of movie where people left the theatre with tears stained down their cheeks, not for me, but for _her,_ for him, for what was lost. There would be anger and hateful reviews. Bile would turn in their stomachs at the horrible images that they saw, what they witnessed.

But I guaranteed one thing-this was the kind of movie that everyone would remember. It once was a love story, even borderline romantic comedy, but then, for everyone involved in the making, in our own very lives, it turned into the worst kind of horror.

"Would the defendant please rise?"

With unsteady legs and a heavy heart, I scrambled to my feet, my arms cuffed too tightly in front of me, not helping my movement any. In the longest few seconds of my life, all I could register was my father's hands shaking beside me, my mother's cries from her seat a few rows back, and Bella's screams. Even though her voice wasn't escalating into pure terror in that moment, the screams were always there, a background music to my already depressing mental playlist.

"Has the jury reached a verdict?"

The woman's eyes shot to mine. I held them, knowing that the rest of my very life rested in her next few words.

"Yes, Your Honor."

Panic quickly overwhelmed me, rising to the surface and taking over all of my senses. I had managed to be so calm up until now. I had become a brick wall, masked, unable to feel. It was the only way to really cope, but now, now I felt the blackness seeping deep inside my bones, pumping through my veins, thumping loudly behind my eyes.

"On the charge of third-degree murder, issued for the defendant, Edward Cullen, how do you find?"

I expected my heart to stop, but it did the opposite. It was beating so fast that I was sure it would find a way out of my chest. I tried to pay attention, to keep myself upright. I saw her mouth open, as I continued to hear Bella's screams in the background, and then everything went black.

**...**

**September 2008**

"Dude, I can't believe our Psych professor actually showed us a porno in class." Riley laughed beside me as he nudged my arm, borderline giddy in his movements as we left the auditorium our class was held in. "College is going to be so cool!"

"Is that all you got from that?" I shook my head, even though I couldn't help but smile at his juvenile reaction.

"Naked women mixed in with my education…hell yeah that's all I got from that."

"Ri," I began, "the guys would kill the women at the end. Did you not get the deep social and physiological implications of that? He wasn't just showing us porn to show us porn…"

"Thanks for being the classic buzz-kill, yet again, Edward," he scoffed. "No wonder you never get laid."

"And yet again, you, my friend, are exceptionally clueless." I laughed as we reached the doors of the student union, headed towards the cafeteria.

"Whatever, man," he dismissed. "I'll catch ya later." He turned to walk towards the computer lab as I finished headed toward the direction where I was meeting Bella.

She was sitting at a table, a book in her hands and feet propped on the chair beside her, as I snuck up behind her. Her short auburn hair played at the base of her neck, and it gave me unrestricted access to kiss her uncovered shoulder. It was still only September, so it was warm enough for her to get away with the tank top and jean cut-offs she was wearing.

She tilted her head further to the side and laughed as she felt my lips on her skin. My hands ghosted up the side of her arms and held firmly to her shoulders, my face coming around to kiss her on the mouth now.

"Hey, you," I murmured, kissing her again before I pulled up the chair next to her that her feet weren't resting against.

"How was class?" she asked sweetly, closing her book and putting it down on the table.

"I watched people having sex."

Her eyebrow rose. "Oh really. How was it?" She laughed lightly, tucking her arm underneath her so her chin could rest on her hand.

"The guys killed the girl at the end."

"What!" Her face transformed from relaxed and joking to fear-stricken and serious in a second.

"Yeah, my professor is doing all this research on it. Apparently, the cool new thing to do is pick up hookers on the street, give them all this money, and then kill them at the end while they video-record it all." My voice was light, but deep down, the thought that anyone could actually do this to another sickened me beyond belief.

"Edward, that's horrible," she said, shaking her head back and forth, her heavy eyes looking at mine with immense sadness.

"Yeah. You're lucky you're sleeping with someone who isn't a crazy mother-fucker," I tried to joke, but all it earned me was a smack on my arm.

"That's not funny," she chastised.

"Okay, okay, sorry." I raised my hands up in surrender. "Tell me about your day."

Her face relaxed again as we transformed into easier topics. "It was good – we got our lab partner assignments today." Bella and I had known each other since high school and had been dating since our junior year. She and I were lab partners in Biology together, and honestly, the only reason she passed that class was because she cheated off me. One of her biggest fears in college was getting a decent grade in her two required sciences.

"Oh yeah, you were really nervous about that." I dug into the Lays chips that she had opened on the table and popped one into my mouth. "Who did you end up with?"

"This guy named Jacob Anderson. He seems nice enough, pretty quiet, though."

"Is he smart?" I asked, digging into the bag for another chip.

She shrugged her shoulders and held her hand out for the bag so she could eat too. "I guess. We didn't do much, but only time will tell."

"I can always help if you need it, too, babe." I nudged her with my knee, causing her to smile at me.

"Now that's a line I've never heard before. 'Hey, Bella, baby, come on, I'll help you study. What do you mean do I always study shirtless?'" she mocked, laughing at my behavior in high school.

I just smirked and leaned in to kiss her again. "Are you really complaining?" I whispered.

Her hand came up and held onto my chin, holding me in place. "Never," she answered, placing her lips back on mine.

…

**October 2008**

"I can't believe you don't even care about your midterms, Edward." Even though I didn't look down to her face, I knew by her tone that she was rolling her eyes at my laissez-faire attitude. Her hand was fit nicely into mine, right where it should have been, as we walked into the school library, our bookbags heavy on our backs.

"It's not that I don't care, Bella. It's just that studying is for the unconfident." I laughed as she elbowed my side with the arm that was still intertwined with mine. "I'm kidding, relax. We'll stay here all night if you want to."

"I actually care about getting through my first ever exam-period."

"You know this isn't like real exams, right? Most of these 'exams' are just like any other test. It's the final at the end that you need to worry about."

"You should worry about everything," she argued as we both looked for a free table.

We eventually found one on the third floor, and I tossed my bag down next to her, taking my laptop out and plugging it in to the outlet conveniently attached to the side of the table.

"Do you want a coffee?" I asked as she settled down in her chair. It didn't even matter that it was past seven at night; we both knew we would be here until a couple hours into the morning.

"Please," she responded, smiling up at me.

"Black?" I smiled, knowing what was coming.

Her face scrunched up in disgust. "God, I hope not. Just get me something that will put me on a good sugar high to go along with the caffeine fix."

I kissed her lips before I turned around to walk away. "Okay, baby."

The line to the coffee shop that was on the first floor to the library was long as hell, and I was tempted to just go behind the counter and make the drinks myself. People kept bumping into my side to get passed or walk through the line, which made me awkwardly back up to the girl behind me. It was a good twenty minutes before I took the stairs back to where Bella was, but when I got back there, she wasn't alone.

Some guy was sitting across from her; his foot was spastically moving up and down under the table, the pencil in his hands matching the rhythm of his leg, but it was his eyes that were glued to Bella's downcast face that was what bothered me. As I looked from afar, she seemed to be reading from her notebook, but this guy was too busy studying her anatomy to focus on the words on his page.

He was pretty scrawny, long, dark hair that was sloppily pulled back at the base of his neck. The glasses that he wore kept slipping down his face, but I accounted that to the continuous movement of his limbs.

"Hi, baby," I said, walking up. "Sorry that took so long; the line was atrocious." Her head tilted up to meet my stare, and I leaned in to kiss her. You bet your ass I noticed that spastic over here suddenly went rigid and stopped his fidgeting when our lips met. "Are you getting a lot done?" I put the coffees on the table and pulled out my chair, taking my seat but scooting it closer to Bella so I could wrap my arm around her. She didn't think anything different of my behavior; this was how we were all the time, so I doubted she chalked it up to the extra set of eyes that seemed to be glued to her.

"Yeah. Jacob just happened to be walking by and saw me." She smiled as she motioned with her hand to the kid sitting across from us. That was the first time I looked over at him since I sat down. "Jacob, this is my boyfriend, Edward," she introduced, and I reached out to shake his hand.

He met my handshake, but I had to wipe my palm on my thigh afterwards because his hand was sweating so badly.

"Hi," he offered, but it was so quiet that I had a hard time hearing him.

"Nice to meet you," I said back, making sure my voice didn't succumb to the low volume his had.

"So what's your major, Jacob?" I asked after a few minutes, once I had settled in and had gotten my books out.

"Um, well, I'm still, um, I don't know yet," he stumbled, pushing his glasses up again. "I'm thinking about Psychology."

"Oh yeah?" I raised my eyebrow and gave him my full attention. "I'm in a basic Psych class right now. It's pretty interesting stuff."

He nodded, but his head dropped as soon as I mentioned my class, and he seemed to be visibly shaking.

"Hey, man, are you okay?" I asked out of genuine concern.

"Um, yeah, oh yeah, fine. Hey, I'm going to go."

Before either Bella or I could ask him why, he shot up out of his chair, grabbed his book, and took off.

"What the hell was that?" I inquired, my gaze still focused on his retreating form.

"He's just really shy," Bella offered, not being too fazed by his behavior.

"Does he do that kind of stuff a lot?"

She shrugged again, her attention back on her open notebook. "Sometimes, when he gets really nervous."

"Well he left half his stuff here." I motioned to the two spiral notebooks that he left on the table, apparently forgetting them in his mad exit.

Bella reached across the space and grabbed them. "I'll give them to him tomorrow," she said kindly, going down to put them in her bookbag. But as she was trying to unzip her bag while holding the notebooks, one of them slipped from between her fingers and fell open on the ground. Being courteous, I bent down to pick it up, but it was what I saw written inside that kept me from handing it back to her.

"What the fuck," I mumbled under my breath, the shock taking away my usual volume. I flipped the page, seeing the same thing as the first. It was covered, and I meant covered, in Bella's name. In all different ways, he wrote her name, filling the page. I continued to flip through the book, and page after page held exact thing as the first, blank white space almost non-existent. "You have got to be kidding me."

Bella looked over at my ramblings and let out a small gasp when she saw what was on there. "Are you serious?" She took the notebook from me and put it in front of her, doing the same thing I had just done and flipped through the pages. "I had no idea."

"Bella, that guy is so weird," I voiced, but she only looked at me with a glance of dismissal.

"He must like me. Oh, now I feel bad." Her voice held so much kindness, but I wanted to hit her over the head with her ignorance.

"Like you? This is obsessive. And why the hell do you feel bad?" I couldn't help that my tone was sharp and full of anger, but I wasn't exactly happy about another guy having this of my girlfriend in his notebook.

"I just…always talk about you. I should really respect his feelings." She just looked sad.

"You're fucking with me, right? Please, for fuck's sake, tell me you're kidding. Are you delusional, Bella!"

"Edward, calm down," she whispered harshly, her eyebrows knitting together in anger.

_Great, now she was pissed with _me!

"I'm going to go find this kid," I shot, pushing my chair back roughly as I jumped to my feet.

"Edward, sit down!" she demanded, grabbing my arm. I reluctantly stopped from walking away, but there was no way I was sitting my ass back in that chair without a damn good explanation. "Seriously, Edward, you need to relax. Jacob is harmless! So he has a crush on me; get over it! Girls have crushes on you all the time, and you don't see me going ape-shit because of it. Do you want to tell me that a girl has never scribbled your name in their notebook? I guarantee they have. Now, sit down and study. Jacob is probably going to be really embarrassed when he realizes that he left this, and you will not make it worse for him. Do you understand?"

I scowled and looked at her for a few beats before eventually sitting down with a huff. "Fucking ridiculous," I said under my breath.

The rest of the night didn't really go that well, but Bella eventually forgot she was mad at me and acted like nothing had happened. She might have not been interested in this kid's weird behavior, but that wasn't the kind of thing I was going to let go of easily. This was Bella we were talking about here. _My _Bella. It wasn't because I was possessive or didn't trust her; it was because I loved her. And I protected the people I loved.

…

**November 2008**

The semester had seemed to pass by so quickly, and winter was bestowed onto us before we knew it. Mine and Riley's dorm room was small, but it was better than being in Bella's, which was halfway across campus, and she had three roommates instead of just one. She spent most nights here, anyway, because my residence hall was a hell of a lot closer to campus than hers was. Ours also had a controlled heating system, which in the winter was like gold.

"Can we just stay in tonight? Watch a movie or something?" I suggested, leaning down to flip through my stack of DVDs under my bed.

"Edward, I can't tonight." She flipped another page of her book that she was reading on the black futon against the far wall.

"Why not? Riley will probably stay at Vicki's tonight. We'll have the place to ourselves!" I lifted the tone of my voice and elongated my words so she would catch my hint.

"Can't," she said point-blank. "Sorry."

I lifted myself from the floor and sat down beside her, leaning my head down on her lap so I could lay up looking at her. "Why not? Do you not want to spend time with me?" I tried to look as sad as I could in that moment to get a sympathy vote.

She held onto her book with one hand and used the other to play with my hair, her fingertips scratching my scalp lightly. "I'm spending time with you right now," she answered smartly.

I grabbed the book from her grasp and tossed it across the room. "Now you're spending time with me."

"You're lucky I checked my page number before you sat down." She laughed, using her now free hand to rest on my stomach.

"You knew it was coming." I smiled, admiring how beautiful she was in the process. "Why can't you stay here?" I knew I sounded pathetic, but I just wanted her to be where I knew she was safe, warm-in my arms would be best.

"I have a lab report due tomorrow, and Jacob and I are working on it together. Come on, Edward, please don't give me a hard time for this. We talked about this already."

I knew we had talked about it, but I still didn't like it. I ran into Jacob a couple more times these past few weeks, and just like Bella had insisted, he seemed nice enough. He still fidgeted whenever he was around me, but after being around him, I figured that was just how he always was. He was a shy, nervous kid who had a crush on Bella. Did I blame him for crushing on Bella? No. As long as he never acted on it, I had no reason to intervene.

"I won't give you a hard time." I sighed, playing with her hand that was in my reach. "I'm just selfish and want you all to myself."

She brought one of my hands to her mouth and kissed it. "You can give me up for one night." She smiled. "Besides, I still plan on sleeping here."

"Good, at least I get that."

"You can still drive me over there, right?" she asked hesitantly. That was another plus about my dorm; we could park our cars in the huge lot down the hill.

"Yeah. I'll pick you up, too. Just call me whenever you're ready." I pulled myself up so I was in a sitting position and shifted so I could lean in and kiss her. "I love you," I said honestly.

"I love you, Edward."

…

"Hey, Edward," her voice streamed through my phone only forty-five minutes after I had dropped her off.

"What is it, Bells?" I dropped my PS3 controller and held the phone closer to my ear.

"Will you come get me?"

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing, don't worry. It's just, um, just come, and I'll explain when you get here."

By that time, I was already shrugging my jacket through my arms and grabbing my keys. "I'm on my way."

The drive only took a few minutes, and when I pulled up to Jacob's dorm, Bella was waiting outside, shivering. I put the car in park and jumped out, worriedly walking over to where she was. She headed my way when she noticed me, but even though I could see her, I wouldn't feel better until she was back in my room.

"What happened?" I asked, wrapping her in a hug, holding her tightly to my chest.

"Cold…" she stumbled, her voice shaky.

"Oh, right, sorry." I led her back to the car and opened the passenger door for her.

When I climbed back in, I made sure the heat was on full blast and pointed at Bella. She held her hands in front of the vents, but she still didn't say anything. I took her silence as my cue to drive, so instead of harassing her, I made my way back to my place.

"Are you ever going to tell me what happened?" I almost yelled, beyond exasperated by this point. We had already been at my place for over an hour, and I had been waiting patiently for her to shower, relax, and warm up.

She sighed heavily, crawling deeper under my covers as I continued to pace back and forth the short length of my room.

"Things just got…weird," she finally started.

"Weird how?" I stopped my pacing, giving her my full attention.

"I don't know. He just kept trying to touch me." I immediately went rigid. "Not like that, Edward, relax. He would just," she paused," stroke my hair and touch my hand. It was just weird. And then he kept dropping stuff and looking around. I just felt uncomfortable, so I told him that I didn't feel well, and then I called you to come get me. I didn't mean to make it into a huge deal."

I took a deep breath and tried to push the anxiety out of my system. She had called me when she felt uncomfortable. I had to at least give her credit for that. I was glad that I had gone up his actual dorm room when I dropped Bella off, even though Bella wasn't too fond of that idea. I just wanted to know where he was staying. Maybe that was what had thrown him off. He never did do well in my presence. Maybe he really was just shy and awkward. Still, he shouldn't have been touching Bella like that. I didn't care if it was just a stroke through her hair or down her arm. A touch was a touch, and his touches didn't belong on my girlfriend.

"Are you going to climb into bed with me, Edward?" she asked with a yawn. "I'm tired, and now I have to wake up especially early to finish my lab report since we didn't get it done tonight."

I sighed again and stripped from my jeans, throwing on a pair of sweatpants and turning off the light. "Scoot over, baby," I nudged, trying to find enough room on the twin-bed. She faced away from me, and I wrapped my arms tightly around her, tucking myself into all the crooks of her body. "Goodnight, sweetheart. Thank you for calling me."

She squeezed my hand that she was holding. "Thank you for being there."

…

**December 2008**

I never believed much in intuition or truth behind 'uneasy feelings'. Never before had I been concerned when my skin shivered or it felt like my blood ran cold. I didn't give it a second thought when I felt so sick to my stomach that I literally purged my dinner back up over the toilet. I chalked it up to getting sick, stressed out from finals, the bitter winter not helping any, either.

If I would have known sooner, taken my body's reaction at a deeper value rather than just passed it off, things might have been different. I wouldn't be broken out in a sweat, running the three flights down the stairs of my residence hall, pushing my way through the bodies that were climbing at a leisurely pace. My phone was clung tightly in my hand, on the verge of breaking with the amount of force I was holding it with. My car keys jingled in my other hand, my thumb already dancing over the unlock button so I wouldn't waste another precious second.

A simple call. She was supposed to have called me by now. She was only supposed to be over there for a little while, finishing that stupid project for her stupid lab. I hated that she was in that science class, I despised that she was forced to work side-by-side with that weird ass creeper, and I was pissed that I didn't pick up the signs sooner.

Jacob Black. I was going to kill that fucker.

I had just gotten off the phone with Bella's dad, who was a police chief back in the town we grew up in. Finally, after last week's stunt Jacob pulled, locking Bella inside the observation room at the lab, I should have put my goddamned foot down. But _no, Jacob was just teasing,_ she had insisted. _It was just a joke, fooling around._

I didn't think it was funny…and either did her father. He ran a background check on this _Jacob_ after I told him of his weird behavior and my skepticism, and it turns out that Jacob Anderson died when he was sixteen in a motorcycle accident. Jacob Black, however, was a registered sex-offender, who had been banned from four campuses already after molestation charges from various women. How the hell he pulled off this identity switch and got into school here blew my mind, only fueling my anger.

I had never been happier that I knew where Jacob lived, and in the exact room, at that. I whipped through the streets pass campus, taking the shortest route possible to his residence hall, trying my best to drive as fast as I could through the current snow-storm. I tried Bella's cell _again_ on the way there, but by now the thing was going straight to voicemail. I prayed to God that it was because her phone was dead and that she just couldn't reach me. But finally I was listening to this gut-wrenching intuition and decided that she would have contacted me by now if she was okay. She wasn't okay…I just knew it.

I hastily parked in the only spot available outside the dorm, not at all caring that my car would probably be towed because it was reserved for the handicapped. Some guy was coming out as soon as I was walking in, so I didn't have to worry about being locked out of the building. I ran right up to the Resident Assistant's desk, not finding anyone behind it.

"Fuck it!" I yelled, jumping up on the counter and over the desk to the other side. I had to find that damn master-key if I had any chance of getting into his room. I knew he wouldn't just open the door sans-request, so this was the next best options. I pulled open all the drawers, moving stuff around in my haste, slamming the door shut if it didn't contain what I needed before moving onto the next one. "Stop fucking with me, God, just show me where the keys are!" I spoke out of pure frustration to myself, pounding the top of the desk with my fist for good measure. If students' passed me by while I was having this argument with myself, I wouldn't have even noticed.

But when I looked up, I knew then that God did indeed exist. I jumped back over the desk, running across the corridor to the janitor's cleaning-stand, snatching the set of keys that hung off its side. I opted for the stairs, thinking that they would be my fastest option. Two at a time, I climbed, this time not being blocked by other people on the same stairwell. When I reached his floor, I didn't waste a moment; I threw the door open and sprinted down the hallway and around the corner. There was loud music playing from inside, and my hands shook as I tried to get the key into place.

"Come on, come on, come on," I chanted to myself. "BELLA!" I shouted, right as I heard the pop that meant the door was unlocked. "BEl…" I wanted to get the rest of my word out, but my breath literally caught in my throat. I dropped the keys I was holding, and I was just inside the room enough that the door closed and locked automatically behind me.

I didn't have time to think. There was only time for action.

Bella, my Bella, the person I loved more than anyone else in the world, was a heap on the floor, clearly unconscious as I saw a line of blood trickle from the top corner of her head. My head turned just an inch, and I could see Jacob, shirtless, setting up a video camera. If I hadn't already gotten sick earlier, I probably would have then in that moment, because that was when I noticed the gun on his dresser. This…this wasn't happening. This was the kind of shit that our professor's showed us in class. This didn't happen to people like me…to Bella…to us.

Thank God Bella's clothes were still intact, besides the rip on her shoulder. But, still, that didn't make it any better. This _guy_ was going to hurt her, rape her, _take her life when he was done,_ as he videotaped it, no less.

Again, there was no time for thinking…I just did it.

He was so much smaller than I was, but even if he matched my size, the amount of adrenaline that was running through my system would have given me the strength to fight him, anyway. I took him by the neck, slamming his half-naked body into the wall a foot away, making sure that the back of his head got the worst of the blow.

"What the hell were you doing!" I roared, my fist connecting nicely with his face. Blood spattered from his lip, and it only fueled me forward. "What were you going to do to my Bella, huh?" I hit him again, but when his head rose, his eyes meeting mine, and he smiled, I truly lost it.

Most of it I didn't remember. There was a lot of blood; it streamed in thick streaks down the white wall, and his face became practically unrecognizable. My foot repeatedly attacked his ribs when he couldn't find the strength to stand anymore, and more blood oozed from his mouth, leaking down his cheek to the carpet. Even though I was shaking, out of my mind, I had a semi-ounce of control left, knowing somewhere that I needed to stop. And then I turned around and saw the bed again, the ropes that were lying on the floor, and I knew that if I didn't end this now, this would happen again. Maybe not to Bella, but to someone else. Someone else's girlfriend, someone else's daughter, sister, friend. No…I wouldn't let it.

On auto-pilot, I grabbed the gun that was sitting on the dresser, checking to make sure the safety was off and that it was loaded. Then, standing over the man that was about to take my love,my life, away from me, I cocked the gun…and took his instead.

Screams, that was when I heard the screams. Bella must have come out of her unconscious state, and when I looked over at her, she was curled into herself, her head in her hands, tears pouring down her face, as she kept screaming, scooting back as far as she could from me. That was when I realized what I had done, really done, and I dropped the gun in absolute disgust, my breathing escaping me. My blood-stained hands reached around the pocket of my jeans for my phone, and when I got to his number, I pressed send.

"Dad," I cried. "You need to help me."

…

**Present Day**

There were consequences for every action, I knew this. I had always known this. I sat in a jail cell for two and a half years before my trial was finally over. _Over,_ I thought. It would never really be over. I saw the boy's face in my head every damn day. Bella's screams never could escape me, either, even in my dreams.

As I sat on my bed, my foot fidgeted as I waited, a new habit that I had picked up over the past few years. It was like a part of Jacob now lived inside me, haunting my very existence, as if the knowledge of what I had done wasn't enough.

When I took the stand at my trial, the prosecution lawyer heavily focused on the fact that I was a _murderer_, which I was, but he took my reasons and twisted them. Besides, it was all on tape… Jacob had yet to really touch Bella before I had gotten there, so all he had really done was pushed her so her head hit the stand next to the bed, causing her to fall unconscious. _Really,_ they had said,_ he never actually did anything._ Regardless of his 'intentions', I was the one who pulled the gun. I was the one who had killed another person.

But it was the question that the lawyer asked me that really sealed my fate. I was tired, worn out, physically and mentally exhausted, but when he asked me this question, I knew very down to the depths of my bones what my answer was.

"Would you do it again?" he prodded.

Looking him straight in the eye, I answered, "Absolutely."

I sighed, my hands running through my buzzed cut hair, missing the long strands that I used to have. But that was only one thing that was missing…I had a whole list if I really wanted to get into it. I heard heavy steps down the hall, bringing me back to this moment, and then the large, familiar body of the prison guard stopped a few feet away from me.

"Cullen, you have a visitor."

The only highlight of my day, the only thing that made all of this worth it...Bella. She was safe, she was alive...and surprisingly, she was still mine.

_Eight more years until parole, _I thought.

Eight more years until I could see Bella more than once a week, before a glass didn't separate us from each other.

Yes, eight more years. I could do eight more years. Besides, for Bella, I could do anything.

…

**Please review**

**And happy birthday, Sarah! **


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